Fall River bridge to close July 29 to August 12 for water main extension

A major road connection in Fall River, N.S., will be closed to cars for two weeks starting this Sunday.

Fletchers Run Bridge will close starting at 6 p.m. for a construction crew to extend a water main, which is part of a plan to provide about 180 homes in the community access to a Halifax Water pipe.

“I think it’ll be harder for people to get to work, so they’ll have to wake up earlier, spend more gas money,” Catherine Burgers-Lamontagne, a server in a Kamp’s Ice Cream truck, located under a minute’s drive from the bridge, said on Tuesday.

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Beth Burchinshaw, who owns the Fall River Chiropractic Clinic, said she’s not sure how the closure will impact her business, but she’s hopeful it won’t.

The well-used bridge connects two parts of the community. According to Google Maps, it would take about 20 minutes with little traffic to get from one side of the bridge to other via another route (Fall River Road, Windsor Junction Road, Cobequid Road, and Highway 2).

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“To make that full loop without having any type of traffic control can add some substantial waits,” Burchinshaw said. “We’ve already seen that with the roadwork going on now; people are waiting 20-30 minutes simply to leave the Sobey’s parking lot.”

The bridge was shut down for several weeks two years ago to be replaced.

READ MORE: Fall River residents gear up for proposed 6-week bridge closure

This upcoming construction couldn’t have been completed during the bridge’s replacement because the money wasn’t available at the time, according to Halifax Water spokesperson James Campbell.

Since then, money was procured by the municipal government from the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund, he said.

“I think it was $8.3 million that they got for phase one and two, out of $10 million,” Campbell said.

“If that fund wasn’t available, who’s to say if the water would ever be coming anytime soon to that community?”

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Otherwise, the residents would have had to foot the bill, he added. The project is currently in phase one; the second phase is expected to begin later this summer and wrap up before the end of the year.

Traffic control staff will be at the site, and the bridge will stay accessible to pedestrians during construction.

The bridge is expected to reopen at 6 p.m. on Aug. 12.